Using the User Profiles Web Part

The PeopleZen User Profiles Web Part offers you an incredibly easy way to list richly formatted links to user profiles inside your SharePoint environment, include relevant people data you choose, filter based on date properties or any others, and display user profile pictures too.

After successfully completed solution installation and feature activation, simply place the Web Part onto any SharePoint Page in the usual way and, depending on the user profiles already set up in your server farm, you will see something like the following:

To customize the PeopleZen User Profiles Web Part, simply select Edit Web Part from the Web Part menu. In the current release, you can customize for any given individual Web Part the following settings outlined below. (PeopleZen also exposes additional configuration settings on the server farm or Site Collection level.)

Display Style

PeopleZen currently supports two view modes.

To find out more:

User Profile Properties

The PeopleZen User Profiles Web Part always displays both the user profile picture and the name of the user. You can specify additional profile properties to be displayed per user. To find out more, see:

Paging, Sorting, Grouping

Simply specify the maximum number of user profiles to show at once, or specify 0 to always show all user profiles in the Web Part. Users can click Next and Previous links inside the Web Part to "page through" all user profiles. To find out more, see the Paging section.

PeopleZen lets you pre-define a sort property and order, as well as a grouping property and direction, and optionally lets end users change these interactively on-the-fly. To find out more, see the Sorting and Grouping sections.

Filtering, Tabbing and Search

You can limit the user profiles to be displayed based on any user profile properties, for example to create Web Parts such as Newly Hired Employees or Upcoming Colleague Birthdays. To find out more, see:

Solution Installation and Feature Activation

1. The PeopleZen Setup Package

The PeopleZen setup package (the roxority_PeopleZen.zip file) is a zipped archive containing:

2. Installing the PeopleZen Solution Package

Run Deploy.exe (under user account credentials added to the Farm Administrators group in Central Administration, on the "primary" SharePoint farm or web front-end server — in a multi-server farm environment, that is the server hosting Central Administration) and when the Welcome screen is displayed, click Next to start a series of system checks. To proceed with the installation, all system checks need to succeed:

Click Next and on the following screen, select the Web Applications to deploy PeopleZen to. You can also de-select those Site Collections you do not want the setup wizard, upon successful deployment, to activate the Web Part Feature immediately for you on.

Note: even when PeopleZen is deployed in a Web Application, before you can add and start using the PeopleZen User Profiles Web Part on Web Part Pages inside a web site, the PeopleZen User Profiles Web Part Feature needs to be activated for the parent Site Collection, as described in the Feature Activation section below. For now, the setup wizard performs these activations for you, depending on your selections.

Click Next to start the installation and wait for the deployment jobs and Feature activation to complete. This process can take up to a few minutes.

After deployment and Feature activation have completed, review the installation log:

Once you have successfully completed the setup wizard, you can start using the PeopleZen User Profiles Web Part on Web Part Pages inside the previously selected Site Collections immediately.

3. Activating the Site Collection Feature

The PeopleZen User Profiles Web Part is a SharePoint Site Collection-scoped Feature, which needs to be 'activated' on each Site Collection it is to be used in.

  1. Start from the Web Part Page you want to use the Web Part on. Select Site Settings from the Site Actions menu.
  2. The Site Settings page contains the Site Collection Administration section. In this section, click the Site collection features link. If it doesn't exist, click the Go to top level site settings link in the Site Collection Administration section instead, and on the root web's Site Settings page now displayed, click the Site Collection Features link inside the Site Collection Administration section.
  3. The Site Collection Features page should contain a row titled PeopleZen Web Part.

Display Style

Select Edit Web Part from the PeopleZen Web Part menu and in the settings tool-pane, you will find the Display Style section right at the top:

Display Style

PeopleZen provides two basic view styles, Tiles View and List View:

Further Appearance and Design Customizations

Data Sources

The user profiles listed in your PeopleZen Web Parts are provided by a something called a Data Source. A PeopleZen Data Source defines the source of the information to be displayed, and how to connect to that source (among other settings).

After installation, there is only one pre-defined PeopleZen Data Source available, titled (Default Data Source). You can customize it or add additional Data Sources via Site Settings / PeopleZen Studio / Data Sources. Each PeopleZen Web Part then lets you select which of your Data Sources to use (in its settings tool-pane, via web part menu / Modify Web Part).

Before reviewing its many other settings, the primary choice for each Data Source is the Connection provider setting. The currently supported choices are:

Farm User Profiles

This is the default choice for PeopleZen installations on SharePoint 2010 Server (SPS) and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007 (and is not available on SharePoint 2010 Foundation (SPF) or Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) 3.0).

Retrieves the farm-wide shared user profile information (which is often imported from Active Directory) stored in the current default User Profiles Service Application (SPS 2010) / the current default Shared Service Provider (MOSS 2007).

Site User Accounts (People and Groups)

This is the default choice for PeopleZen installations on SharePoint 2010 Foundation (SPF) and Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) 3.0.

Retrieves the user profile information (plus optionally groups if desired) stored in the current Site Collection's User Information List (at /_catalogs/users).

Active Directory

Retrieves user profile information stored in any LDAP-compatible directory service, such as Domino or Active Directory.

Database

Retrieves user profile information from SQL Server, Oracle or any other database accessible via OLEDB, ODBC or ADO.NET.

User Profile Properties

Select Edit Web Part from the PeopleZen Web Part menu and in the settings tool-pane, you will find the User Profile Properties section directly underneath Display Style:

Note: the information given below applies for the most part to Data Sources with the Connection Provider set to Farm User Profiles, and to a lesser extent, Site User Accounts (People and Groups). Even if you intend to use another data source such as Active Directory or your own custom SQL-based user database, the basic principles illustrated herein can be extrapolated to these (also with the additional aid of the documented Data Source settings for these Connection Providers).

About SharePoint User Profile Properties

Detailed information belonging to your user profiles in SharePoint is stored in so-called User Profile Properties. They contain "people data" such as their Birthday, Hire Date, Department, Skills, Past Projects etc. SharePoint (Server) 2007 ships with over 40 default properties, SharePoint (Server) 2010 with over 60. You can of course create your own additional custom properties. You can allow or require your users to manually populate their properties on their own profile page directly in SharePoint, and/or you can automatically populate properties during your User Profile Imports from LDAP-compatible directory services such as Active Directory.

It is crucial to note that PeopleZen only displays user profiles and properties already stored inside your SharePoint environment (or your selected non-SharePoint Data Source) — how they get there, how and where they are stored, how they are updated all depends on your SharePoint or systems configuration and is well outside the scope of PeopleZen, the display engine.

To set up or review your user profile properties and your user profile imports from AD or another directory service:

Displaying User Profile Properties in PeopleZen

In the User Profile Properties section pictured above, simply enter the properties to be shown in the multi-line text area, one per line. Always include in each line a colon [ : ] delimiter, otherwise the property will remain hidden from the listings (but can still be selected for interactive end-user ad-hoc re-grouping or re-tabbing).

The easier and least error-prone way for adding user profile properties to this text box is to select them from the drop-down menu just below it, labeled Add known user profile property.

Each user profile property contained in this text box is represented by a line containing a colon [ : ] delimiter. Before the colon, the internal property name is given, for example SPS-Birthday. After the colon, specify the desired localized display name shown to end users, for example Birthday. The part after the colon can be anything you wish, the part before the colon must be the valid internal name of an existing SharePoint user profile property (otherwise you'll see a Property Not Defined: [WrongPropName]. An administrator must create this property in the Profile Administration tool message).

If you do not specify a colon delimiter and a display name, the user profile property will not be shown in your people listings. To show the property values but no property name, use the special display name ___ (three underscores).

How user names and profile pictures are displayed (or hidden)

User names and profile pictures are also stored in User Profile Properties, but PeopleZen shows them already by default without having to specify them in the User Profile Properties text box described above. PeopleZen treats these as "special properties" and you can customize them in the Miscellaneous section.

Filtering, Tabbing and Search

Global User Name Filter

There are certain user accounts that you probably never want PeopleZen to show under any circumstances. You can filter these out "globally", ie. on the farm level or on the Site Collection level. This is done via the Exclude User Names configuration setting available via Site Settings / PeopleZen Studio / Configuration Settings, where you specify fully qualified domain account names to exclude, or describe a range of user names with *wild-card* patterns.

Simple Built-In Filtering

Select Edit Web Part from the PeopleZen Web Part menu and in the settings tool-pane, you will find the Filtering section:

A simple way to let end-users quickly filter by a given primary user profile field is the built in Quick-Filter Tabs feature. Simply select that field in the drop-down menu labeled Show tabs to quickly filter by. If you select the Department field, for example, PeopleZen provides tabs that correspond to the existing data values, and each tab shows only user profiles matching the implied filter:

This works well for user profile fields with a limited number of repeatedly used values, such as Department (where realistically between 3 and 20 values will exist), Skills, Past Projects, Manager etc. However, this feature has a neat way of also working well with fields of a potentially vast set of values, such as user names (up to as many values as user profiles may exist), phone numbers, birthdays etc. Beyond a certain threshold number of unique values (the default is 16), instead of providing each value as a separate tab, groups of values are subsumed under alphabetical, numerical or chronological index tabs:

To use quick-filter tabs, you need to pre-define a user profile field to filter by, but if you want end-users to change this interactively on-the-fly, simply tick the Allow interactive ad-hoc change of that field check-box option.

You will notice in the above screenshots that a tab simply labeled "—" may be shown at the end that shows all user profiles where the quick-filter tabs user profile field has no values at all. You can hide these people using the Always hide the [Empty] quick-filter tab configuration setting. You can also choose to show the PeopleZen Web Part initially-unfiltered by prepending to your quick-filter tabs a tab (to be selected-by-default) labeled (All), using the Always show the [All] quick-filter tab configuration setting.

Other options in the Filtering section:

Adding Search and Advanced Filtering via Connections

You can further filter PeopleZen by a variety of methods:

All of these above use-cases, and many more, can be achieved by connecting PeopleZen to a filter provider Web Part. Select Edit Web Part from the PeopleZen Web Part menu and then from the same menu, in the Connections / Get Filters From sub-menu select a filter provider Web Part:

Depending on the filter provider Web Part, this may show a Configure Connection dialog (that you can also use to remove the connection if needed) where you can select the user profile field to filter by:

While PeopleZen supports all filter provider Web Parts built into SharePoint (including List Views and the built-in Filter Web Parts including the Choice Filter, Current User Filter, Date Filter, Page Field Filter, Query String (URL) Filter, SharePoint List Filter, SQL Server Analysis Services Filter and Text Filter), we highly recommend using a FilterZen Filter Web Part, which:

FilterZen lets you compose the most advanced search interfaces for PeopleZen:

Filtering Use-Cases:

Sorting and Grouping

Select Edit Web Part from the PeopleZen Web Part menu and in the settings tool-pane, scroll down to the Sorting and Grouping section:

Sorting

First note that there is always a sort order applied to all PeopleZen team listings, the default order of people is never random. The default sort order is ascending by user display name. You can customize this by selecting a different user profile field from the Sort by: drop-down menu.

Numeric fields and date values are not sorted alphabetically, but rather numerically or chronologically.

In List View, you can optionally allow end users to change the sort field and direction (ascending or descending) interactively on-the-fly (re-sorting via column headers) — inside the Display Style section rather than the Paging section.

Grouping

By default, user profiles are not grouped, but you can group them by any user profile field by selecting it from the Group by: drop-down menu. For example, grouping by the Department field may first show all user profiles belonging to the Engineering department, then all belonging to the Finance department, then the HR department, IT and so on, all under a respective grouping header in each case.

The order of the group headers is ascending by default but can be changed to descending. This uses the grouping field's value by default, unless you tick the ...but by counts instead of group values check-box option. To show the number of profiles belonging to each group in parentheses right after the group header, tick the Show counts in group headers check-box option.

You can allow end users to change the group sort field and direction (ascending or descending) interactively on-the-fly, by ticking the Allow interactive ad-hoc change of the grouping property selected above and/or Allow interactive ad-hoc change of grouping direction (ascending / descending) check-box options.

Paging

Select Edit Web Part from the PeopleZen Web Part menu and in the settings tool-pane, scroll down to the Paging section:

At its top, this section lets you specify the maximum number of user profiles to show per "page". The default value is 6 and this simply means that no more than 6 user accounts will ever be listed at once in the Web Part. If there are more profiles then "paging links" will be shown at the top, allowing end users to navigate forward or backward in the people listing. To disable paging, simply enter 0.

You can also customize how these paging links are displayed:

Miscellaneous Web Part Properties

Select Edit Web Part from the PeopleZen Web Part menu and in the settings tool-pane, scroll down to the Miscellaneous section:

At its top, this section lets you specify a custom height (in pixels) of user profile pictures. This setting defaults to 0, which causes the Web Part to fall back to the currently applicable CSS rules (by default, ie. unless you have CSS customizations in place, 72 pixels in Tiles View or 24 pixels in List View).

Right below it you can choose to offer the selected print-friendly view in the Web Part menu — this adds a Print command to the PeopleZen Web Part menu. To be able to select a print-friendly view from this drop-down list, PrintZen needs to be installed in this SharePoint server farm:

Right below it you can choose to offer the selected CSV/Excel export in the Web Part menu — this adds an Export command to the PeopleZen Web Part menu. To be able to select an export from this drop-down list, ExportZen needs to be installed in this SharePoint server farm.

The Loading Animation is shown to indicate that PeopleZen is currently refreshing or reloading information to be displayed via AJAX, ie. without causing the rest of the page to reload. This can occur when changing a filter or switching to another quick-filter tab, paging forward or back, applying a new sort order, changing the grouping field or direction, or changing the quick-tab filtering field. You can choose between a Progress Bar animation, a Spinner animation or select (None) to disable any loader animations.

When rendering both user profile pictures and user names, you can customize whether to display them and if so, whether to link them to either the public profile or the personal page of the user, or not at all.

Tick the indicate online presence check-box option just below if you want to show a little marker next to the user name indicating the online/offline status of the user in the currently available instant messaging infrastructure context, if any (most likely, this will be Office Communications Server / OCS integrated with MSN / Windows Live Messenger). Clicking the marker will bring up an Office Communications menu (2007) or info popup (2010 products) for further details about, or interaction with this person:

Tick the Override Web Part settings from URL parameters check-box option if you intend to supply via URL Parameters any of PeopleZen's URL-overridable Web Part properties.

Settings for Data Sources

The following settings can be customized for each Data Source by administrative users on the Data Sources page in your PeopleZen Studio, accessible via Site Settings / PeopleZen Studio / Data Sources:

"General" tab:

Name for this Data Source

(Text box)

This name will not be shown anywhere outside this page, but helps you stay organized.

This Data Source is...

(Descriptor for a set of SharePoint Web Sites)

Optionally select in which web sites this Data Source will be available. By default, it will be available in all web sites and this usually does not need to be changed during your first explorations within this software. Only perform changes if you are familiar with the terminology presented in the above property editor. Should your changes not result in the expected outcome, you can always easily set this back to "all web sites, no exceptions" and then resume experimenting incrementally with your exceptions.

To define the set of Web Sites, first select either Available in all Web Sites or Available in no Web Sites, then click the except... link to describe which web sites to exclude from that selection. You can exclude:

Connection provider

(Data source connection provider picker)

Select which type of data connection will be used by this data source. If you change this, all settings in the other tabs need to be reviewed and many will have to be re-configured.

"Farm User Profiles" tab:

Exclude User Names

(Text box)

You can optionally specify the patterns of user names (one per line) that should always be excluded from all PeopleZen Web Parts (for example, service accounts). You may include an asterisk (*) only at the beginning ("ends with"), at the end ("begins with") or both ("contains"). This setting is not case-sensitive.

Important: the patterns in this setting are matched against the field denoted as the Logon name data field (on the Data Fields tab).

Default value for new Data Sources:

system\*
nt authority\*
builtin\*
sharepoint\*

Always exclude domain from names displayed in the Name/Title special field

(Check box option)

User names are usually displayed based on your Name/Title data field/s setting (on the Data Fields tab). Some of the users returned by this Data Source may not have a preferred name (such as first and last name combined) set and might show a fully-qualified domain account name (ie. companydomain\user123). Tick this option to always suppress the domain part of the user name when displayed in the Name/Title special field.

Cache Refresh Rate

(Text box)

After a web front-end server has restarted, PeopleZen always creates a full cache of all user profiles in memory the first time a rendering request consuming a Farm User Profiles Data Source is served.

Afterwards, PeopleZen resynchronizes only a certain number of cached user profiles during each request to adequately balance performance with accuracy of the information displayed.

Specify the number of user profiles to refresh during each PeopleZen rendering request. A higher number (40 or more) reflects recent user profile changes much sooner but slows down PeopleZen rendering significantly, and vice versa.

If you don't specify a valid integer number greater than 0, the default value of 10 will be used.

Default value for new Data Sources:

10

Periodically rebuild cache fully

(Check box option)

Typically neither required nor recommended for production systems!

After a web front-end server has restarted, PeopleZen always creates a full cache of all user profiles in memory the first time a rendering request consuming a Farm User Profiles Data Source is served.

Those cached user profiles are periodically refreshed at the rate specified above; however, completely new user profiles go unnoticed until the next server reset.

Tick this check box for PeopleZen to completely rebuild the cache periodically every nth PeopleZen rendering request, which as a consequence may significantly slow down every nth request but captures new user profiles imported since the cache was last re-created (n = number of user profiles divided by the cache request rate specified above).

"Site User Accounts (People and Groups)" tab:

Exclude User Names

(Text box)

You can optionally specify the patterns of user names (one per line) that should always be excluded from all PeopleZen Web Parts (for example, service accounts). You may include an asterisk (*) only at the beginning ("ends with"), at the end ("begins with") or both ("contains"). This setting is not case-sensitive.

Important: the patterns in this setting are matched against the field denoted as the Logon name data field (on the Data Fields tab).

Default value for new Data Sources:

system\*
nt authority\*
builtin\*
sharepoint\*

Always exclude domain from names displayed in the Name/Title special field

(Check box option)

User names are usually displayed based on your Name/Title data field/s setting (on the Data Fields tab). Some of the users returned by this Data Source may not have a preferred name (such as first and last name combined) set and might show a fully-qualified domain account name (ie. companydomain\user123). Tick this option to always suppress the domain part of the user name when displayed in the Name/Title special field.

Return user accounts

(Drop-down menu to pick from a set of choices)

Select which user account collection to enumerate, if any.

Return user groups

(Drop-down menu to pick from a set of choices)

Select which user group collection to enumerate, if any.

"Active Directory" tab:

Exclude User Names

(Text box)

You can optionally specify the patterns of user names (one per line) that should always be excluded from all PeopleZen Web Parts (for example, service accounts). You may include an asterisk (*) only at the beginning ("ends with"), at the end ("begins with") or both ("contains"). This setting is not case-sensitive.

Important: the patterns in this setting are matched against the field denoted as the Logon name data field (on the Data Fields tab).

Default value for new Data Sources:

system\*
nt authority\*
builtin\*
sharepoint\*

Always exclude domain from names displayed in the Name/Title special field

(Check box option)

User names are usually displayed based on your Name/Title data field/s setting (on the Data Fields tab). Some of the users returned by this Data Source may not have a preferred name (such as first and last name combined) set and might show a fully-qualified domain account name (ie. companydomain\user123). Tick this option to always suppress the domain part of the user name when displayed in the Name/Title special field.

Connection URL (required)

(Text box)

An LDAP/ADSI connection string that is used by this Data Source to connect to your directory service.

Default value for new Data Sources:

LDAP://OU=Departments,DC=global,DC=local

Search query for directory-side pre-filtering (if required)

(Text box)

An optional LDAP/ADSI query that is used by the directory service to pre-filter the result set send back to this Data Dource. (With a filter query defined here, this Data Source performs a directory service Search operation and yields the result set returned; without, it simply enumerates through all directory entries.)

Default value for new Data Sources:

(&(objectCategory=person)(objectClass=user))

Authentication mode

Select how this Data Source should authenticate itself to the directory service specified above.

User name for directory service authentication (if required)

(Text box)

If you selected Secure under the Authentication mode setting above, you can optionally specify a fully-qualified user name for authentication. If you leave this blank, the Secure authentication mode will use the current security context; otherwise, you also need to specify a password below.

Password for directory service authentication (if required)

(Text box)

If you selected Secure under the Authentication mode setting above, you can optionally specify a password for authentication of the above user name. If you leave this blank, the Secure authentication mode will use the current security context; otherwise, you also need to specify a user name above.

"Database" tab:

Exclude User Names

(Text box)

You can optionally specify the patterns of user names (one per line) that should always be excluded from all PeopleZen Web Parts (for example, service accounts). You may include an asterisk (*) only at the beginning ("ends with"), at the end ("begins with") or both ("contains"). This setting is not case-sensitive.

Important: the patterns in this setting are matched against the field denoted as the Logon name data field (on the Data Fields tab).

Default value for new Data Sources:

system\*
nt authority\*
builtin\*
sharepoint\*

Always exclude domain from names displayed in the Name/Title special field

(Check box option)

User names are usually displayed based on your Name/Title data field/s setting (on the Data Fields tab). Some of the users returned by this Data Source may not have a preferred name (such as first and last name combined) set and might show a fully-qualified domain account name (ie. companydomain\user123). Tick this option to always suppress the domain part of the user name when displayed in the Name/Title special field.

ADO.NET database connection provider

(Drop-down menu to pick from a configurable set of choices)

Select the ADO.NET database connection provider to use for this Data Source. If required, you can restrict or extend the available choices with the ADO.NET Database Connection Providers for SQL Data Access configuration setting.

The drop-down menu provides a set of choices that can be customized on the Configuration page of the PeopleZen Studio.

ADO.NET database connection string (required)

(Text box)

Specify the ADO.NET connection string (including user credentials if applicable) used by this Data Source to connect to the database. If you want to specify a password but hide it (and store it encrypted), enter the placeholder {$ROXPWD$} in place of the password and then specify the password in the field below instead.

ADO.NET database connection password (if required)

(Text box)

If you used the {$ROXPWD$} placeholder in the setting above, you can specify the password here. This will be stored encrypted.

ADO.NET data query (required)

(Text box)

Specify, in SQL (or any other query language dialect supported by the selected ADO.NET database connection provider), the query sent to the database to fetch the result set of records to be returned by this Data Source.

"Data Fields" tab:

Default data fields (for Preview and new Data Source consumers)

(Data fields picker)

Specify the fields to be shown by default in the Data Source Preview and in newly created, not yet customized consumers of this Data Source (ie. PeopleZen Web Parts, Lookup Filters, Lookup Columns etc.)

Each line contains an internal field name. Fields will then be displayed by Data Source consumers in the same order. Note that this is a default template that can be customized for each consumer.

To override the display name of a field in the Data Source consumer, enter your own display name in the same line next to the internal name, separated by a colon [:].

You can only include original fields provided by this Data Source (as listed in the above drop-down) — any special fields defined below cannot be included here (but the Data Source consumer itself will know how to utilize those depending on its configuration).

Name/Title data field/s

(Data fields picker)

This lets you define a special "title / name" field, which can then be linked or displayed in a specific manner if so configured at the data source consumer side (ie. PeopleZen Web Part, Lookup Filter, Lookup Column etc.) The source data fields specified here will be probed in the specified order to populate this target special field.

Each line contains the source field name to probe enclosed by [square brackets]. You can also combine other static textual content with one or multiple [field names] in each line. For each record, only the first line to return a non-empty value will be used and all other lines will be ignored.

Picture data field/s

(Data fields picker)

This lets you define a special "picture / icon image (URL)" field, which can then be linked or displayed in a specific manner if so configured at the data source consumer side (ie. PeopleZen Web Part, Lookup Filter, Lookup Column etc.) The source data fields specified here will be probed in the specified order to populate this target special field.

Each line contains the source field name to probe enclosed by [square brackets]. You can also combine other static textual content with one or multiple [field names] in each line. For each record, only the first line to return a non-empty value will be used and all other lines will be ignored.

Link URL data field/s

(Data fields picker)

This lets you define a special "URL for linking Name/Title and/or picture" field, which can then be linked or displayed in a specific manner if so configured at the data source consumer side (ie. PeopleZen Web Part, Lookup Filter, Lookup Column etc.) The source data fields specified here will be probed in the specified order to populate this target special field.

Each line contains the source field name to probe enclosed by [square brackets]. You can also combine other static textual content with one or multiple [field names] in each line. For each record, only the first line to return a non-empty value will be used and all other lines will be ignored.

Presence email address data field/s

(Data fields picker)

This lets you define a special "email address (for IM/OCS Presence indicator)" field, which can then be linked or displayed in a specific manner if so configured at the data source consumer side (ie. PeopleZen Web Part, Lookup Filter, Lookup Column etc.) The source data fields specified here will be probed in the specified order to populate this target special field.

Each line contains the source field name to probe enclosed by [square brackets]. You can also combine other static textual content with one or multiple [field names] in each line. For each record, only the first line to return a non-empty value will be used and all other lines will be ignored.

Logon name data field/s

(Data fields picker)

This lets you define a special "full user logon name / domain account name (domainname\username)" field, which can then be linked or displayed in a specific manner if so configured at the data source consumer side (ie. PeopleZen Web Part, Lookup Filter, Lookup Column etc.) The source data fields specified here will be probed in the specified order to populate this target special field.

Each line contains the source field name to probe enclosed by [square brackets]. You can also combine other static textual content with one or multiple [field names] in each line. For each record, only the first line to return a non-empty value will be used and all other lines will be ignored.

Field mappings for Outlook (vCard 3.0) export

(Text box)

Advanced users only! When customizing, seek assistance in our software support forums.

Contains the full template for the entire vCard 3.0 export of a user profile (excluding the BEGIN, VERSION, REV and END lines). Placeholders in [square brackets] denote Data Source field names and will be replaced with their respective field values at export time.

In your [square bracket placeholders], you can specify any data field name supported by this Data Source as well as any of the following Special Field names:

[rox___pt] — Name/Title data field/s specified above
[rox___pp] — Picture data field/s specified above
[rox___pu] — Link URL data field/s specified above
[rox___pm] — Presence email address data field/s specified above
[rox___pl] — Logon name data field/s specified above

Default value for new Data Sources:

N:[LastName];[FirstName]
FN:[rox___pt]
ORG:roxority
EMAIL:[rox___pm]
PHOTO;VALUE=URL:[rox___pp]
TEL:[CellPhone]
TITLE:[Title]
ADR:;;[SPS-Location]

"Preview" tab:

Preview this Data Source

(Data source previewer)

Click the Refresh button above to load a dynamic preview of this Data Source with its current settings (even if not yet saved). You can parameterize the preview with the various options offered above. It only shows the fields specified in your Default data fields setting (on the Data Fields tab).

Important note: this is a data preview rather than a design preview. Depending on loaded out-of-box or custom style sheets, the look and feel of your ultimate Data Source consumers in your content sites will vary from the visual design presented above.

Configuration Settings

The following configuration settings are available to administrative users on the Configuration page in your PeopleZen Studio, which you can access via Site Settings / PeopleZen Studio / Configuration Settings.

Each setting has a global value scoped to the SharePoint server farm, and this value can optionally be overridden on the Site Collection level. The following settings are available:

User Interface Language

PeopleZen has been localized for multiple languages. Changing this setting affects all PeopleZen user interfaces except captions and descriptions of Features, List Templates, Column Types, Content Types or Web Part Templates (those are always loaded directly by SharePoint based on the current Web Site locale).

You can pick one of the following options on the Configuration page in the PeopleZen Studio:

Window target for data record Name/Title links

Data record Name/Title links produced by the PeopleZen Web Part can target an HTML window of your choice. Use _self for these links to open in the current browser window, _blank for them to open in a new window, _modal for them to open in a modal pop-up dialog window, or the name of an IFRAME or FRAME element residing in your Web Part Page.

After you have customized this setting, you can click the Reset to Default Value link on the Configuration page in the PeopleZen Studio to restore the following default value:

_self

HTML template for email addresses

The HTML to be generated by the PeopleZen Web Part for all data record field values that are email addresses. Valid placeholders: {0} for the email address, {1} for { and {2} for }.

After you have customized this setting, you can click the Reset to Default Value link on the Configuration page in the PeopleZen Studio to restore the following default value:

<a href="mailto:{0}">{0}</a>

HTML template for vCard export links

The HTML to be generated by the PeopleZen Web Part for vCard export links. Valid placeholders: {0} for the vCard export URL, {1} for { and {2} for }.

After you have customized this setting, you can click the Reset to Default Value link on the Configuration page in the PeopleZen Studio to restore the following default value:

<a href="{0}"><img src="/_layouts/images/outl.gif"/></a>

HTML template for record field with value

The HTML to be generated by the PeopleZen Web Part (in Tiles view) for each data field that has a value. Valid placeholders: {0} for the field display name, {1} for the field value, {2} for the field internal name, {3} for { and {4} for }.

After you have customized this setting, you can click the Reset to Default Value link on the Configuration page in the PeopleZen Studio to restore the following default value:

{0}: <span>{1}</span>

HTML template for record field without value

The HTML to be generated by the PeopleZen Web Part (in Tiles view) for each data field that has no value. Valid placeholders: {0} for the field display name, {1} for the localized word 'unknown', {2} for the field internal name, {3} for { and {4} for }.

After you have customized this setting, you can click the Reset to Default Value link on the Configuration page in the PeopleZen Studio to restore the following default value:

{0}: &mdash;

Exclude all record fields without values (in Tiles view)

By default, the PeopleZen Web Part generates an HTML block element (in Tiles view) for each data field included per its Web Part settings, even when no field value has been set for a particular data record. On the Configuration page in the PeopleZen Studio, tick this check box to never generate any HTML output (in Tiles view) for empty data fields.

Separator for multi-valued record fields

Some data fields (such as for example Skills or Responsibilities in Farm User Profiles) can store multiple values. Specify how to join these values together for rendering in the PeopleZen Web Part.

After you have customized this setting, you can click the Reset to Default Value link on the Configuration page in the PeopleZen Studio to restore the following default value:

, 

Position of Navigation Bar

Your PeopleZen Web Parts may show a navigation bar containing paging links [Back | Next], the interactive View switcher [Tiles | List] and/or an animated loading progress indicator. Select where this navigation bar should be placed.

You can pick one of the following options on the Configuration page in the PeopleZen Studio:

Threshold before reducing quick-filter tabs

By default, quick-filter tabs are generated so that all tabs correspond to existing data field values. This is preferable for multi-choice properties (such as for example Skills, Responsibilities etc. for Farm User Profiles) but less usable for potentially vast numbers of values (First Name, Last Name...) — therefore, beyond a certain number of values quick-filter tabs will be reduced to alphabetic or numeric indices (A, B, C...)

Use this setting to specify that threshold. If you don't specify a valid integer number between 2 and 30, the default value of 16 will be used.

After you have customized this setting, you can click the Reset to Default Value link on the Configuration page in the PeopleZen Studio to restore the following default value:

16

Always hide the [Empty] quick-filter tab

By default, a quick-filter tab will be added to show data records without a value for the quick-filter field (but only if such records exist). On the Configuration page in the PeopleZen Studio, tick this check box to never show that quick-filter tab.

Always show the [All] quick-filter tab

When using quick-filter tabs, by default the first quick-filter tab will be initially selected and there is no way for end users to show "all data records, unfiltered". On the Configuration page in the PeopleZen Studio, tick this check box to always add an [All] quick-filter tab that shows all data records unfiltered (and to always make this the initially-selected tab, too).

Always reverse the sort order of quick-filter tabs

On the Configuration page in the PeopleZen Studio, tick this check box to sort quick-filter tabs descending rather than ascending.

Embedding of connected FilterZen Web Parts

By default, the Interactive Filters container area of a FilterZen Web Part will be visually embedded inside the PeopleZen Web Part it is connected to (if Ajax-based Live Filtering has been enabled for the latter). This usually results in a preferable user experience, but this setting allows you to turn the behaviour off, should you want to.

You can pick one of the following options on the Configuration page in the PeopleZen Studio:

AJAX-based lazy loading of data records after page render (typically not preferable)

Unless disabled below, all interactive end user re-adjustments of information shown in a PeopleZen Web Part refresh its display asynchronously (without reloading the page) via AJAX; however, when the page is first rendered, the initial display of the PeopleZen Web Part is by default already loaded and pre-populated at render time. Unless this significantly (!) slows down the rendering time of the entire page, this is the preferable and more end user-friendly approach. On the Configuration page in the PeopleZen Studio, tick this check box to never load and show data records at render time and instead lazy-load them via AJAX once the full page is ready and fully loaded client-side.

Disable AJAX-based handling (not recommended)

Certain end-user interactions (such as paging forwards or back, re-sorting, re-grouping or re-filtering) are handled by PeopleZen using AJAX, without reloading the entire page. This highly preferable behavior however can break in certain very rare FBA / ISA constellations or other kinds of highly customized enterprise VPN / proxy setups. On the Configuration page in the PeopleZen Studio, tick this check box to disable all AJAX-based interactions and revert to a page-reloading, post-back style of handling user interaction.

ADO.NET Database Connection Providers for SQL Data Access

Specify the ADO.NET database connection providers that your Database/SQL Data Sources should support (one per line, using the pattern "Provider display name: full provider IDbConnection Type name, full assembly name").

After you have customized this setting, you can click the Reset to Default Value link on the Configuration page in the PeopleZen Studio to restore the following default value:

SQL Server: System.Data.SqlClient.SqlConnection, System.Data
Oracle: System.Data.OracleClient.OracleConnection, System.Data.OracleClient
ODBC: System.Data.Odbc.OdbcConnection, System.Data
OLE DB: System.Data.OleDb.OleDbConnection, System.Data

By default, no inclusion of jQuery library v1.4.4 (NOT recommended)

Some PeopleZen end user-facing artifacts require (and load into the respective host pages) the jQuery library, version 1.4.4. Embedding jQuery more than once in a single page can cause JavaScript warnings in Internet Explorer with some few jQuery plugins (and only if any are used in your farm at all). On the Configuration page in the PeopleZen Studio, tick this check box only if your master pages, web pages or third-party extensions also already include jQuery globally (not just on some individual pages) and independently of PeopleZen to prevent PeopleZen from loading jQuery too. If you do so, you need to make sure jQuery 1.4.4 or higher is loaded on each page hosting also hosting PeopleZen user interface artifacts, or PeopleZen will appear broken. This is a global default setting that can be optionally overridden locally where applicable.

Reference: URL Settings Parameters

About URL-overridable Settings

When the Override Web Part and filter settings from URL parameters check box is ticked (in Web Part settings), every Web Part setting is overridden by the appropriate URL (query string) parameter value, if it exists. See the possible parameter names and values below.

Note: a URL override of any given Web Part setting will affect all PeopleZen User Profile Web Parts present on the current Web Part Page with the Override Web Part and filter settings from URL parameters option ticked.

Overridable Web Part Settings

Reference: CSS Classes

The output produced by the PeopleZen User Profiles Web Part is decorated with the CSS class names detailed below, allowing for full customizability of its visual appearance. These elements are pre-styled in /_layouts/roxority_PeopleZen/roxority_PeopleZen.css.

To customize the appearance of the PeopleZen User Profiles Web Part, do not modify the /_layouts/roxority_PeopleZen/roxority_PeopleZen.css file in your SharePoint server file system: your modifications would get lost when deploying product updates in the future. Instead, place your modifications in a separate CSS file and embed it in your Web Part Page, Master Page or Page Layout.

See our blog article Introduction to PeopleZen CSS Customizations for an example of how to do so.

Release Notes

Version 1.8 (29th November 2010)

Version 1.7.5 (25th September 2010)

Version 1.7 (11th September 2010)

Version 1.6 (8th August 2010)

Version 1.5 (16th April 2010)

Version 1.4 (26th January 2010)

Version 1.3 (25th December 2009)

Version 1.2 (21st September 2009)

Version 1.1 (18th September 2009)

Version 1.0 (30th July 2008)

End-User License Agreement (EULA)

END-USER SOFTWARE LICENSE AGREEMENT FOR ROXORITY SOFTWARE PRODUCTS

THIS IS A LEGALLY BINDING AGREEMENT BETWEEN YOU (EITHER AN INDIVIDUAL OR A SINGLE ENTITY) AND ROXORITY LTD. (ROXORITY) FOR ROXORITY SOFTWARE, ASSOCIATED MEDIA AND PRINTED MATERIALS, AND MAY INCLUDE ONLINE OR ELECTRONIC DOCUMENTATION ("SOFTWARE"). BY INSTALLING, COPYING, OR OTHERWISE USING THE ROXORITY SOFTWARE PRODUCT, YOU ARE AGREEING TO BE BOUND BY THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF THIS AGREEMENT, INCLUDING THE SOFTWARE LICENSE AND DISCLAIMER OF SOFTWARE WARRANTY BELOW. PLEASE READ THIS DOCUMENT CAREFULLY BEFORE USING THE SOFTWARE. IF YOU DO NOT AGREE WITH THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF THIS AGREEMENT, YOU MUST NOT INSTALL OR USE THE SOFTWARE.

LICENSE GRANT

"You" or "your" as used herein means the person or company who is being licensed to use the Software, as defined below. "We," "us" and "our" as used herein means ROXORITY Ltd.

The "Software" as referred to herein means the ROXORITY Software "PeopleZen", a product that extends "Microsoft SharePoint" web sites to provide additional capabilities.

We hereby grant you a perpetual, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable license to use the Software on your server and client computers.

The total number of SharePoint "Site Collections" or "server farms" that the Software can be "activated" on (after 45 days of free trial use) shall be limited to the number of licenses which you purchase. For example, if you purchase 4 Site Collection licenses, you may activate the Software on up to 4 SharePoint Site Collections; if you purchase 2 server farm licenses, you may active the Software on unlimited Site Collections within up to 2 server farms.

Each license is issued to one unique Site Collection or server farm and cannot be transferred to another Site Collection or server farm.

TITLE

The Documentation as referred to herein shall mean the written materials that you may receive in connection with the Software. We will remain the sole and exclusive owners of all right, title and interest in and to the Software and the Documentation.

ARCHIVAL OR BACKUP COPIES

You may copy the Software for back-up and archival purposes only, provided however, that at all times herein, the original and each copy is kept in your possession and that your installation and use of the Software does not exceed that allowed in the "License Grant" section above.

THINGS YOU MAY NOT DO

You agree and acknowledge that the Software and Documentation are proprietary works that are protected by the copyright laws of various nations. You may only use the Software and Documentation for the purposes and in accordance with the terms of this Agreement. You may not, without limitation:

You acknowledge that any violation of this paragraph will cause us immediate and irreparable harm and that the damages which we will suffer may be difficult or impossible to measure. Therefore, upon any actual or impending violation of this paragraph, we shall be entitled to the issuance of a restraining order, preliminary and permanent injunction without bond, restraining or enjoining such violation by you, your successors or assignees or any entity or person acting in concert with you. Such remedy shall be additional to and not in limitation of any other remedy which may otherwise be available to us by law.

TRANSFERS

You may assign all your license to use the Software and Documentation to another person or legal entity (the "Assignee"), provided however, that prior to such assignment, the Assignee undertakes in writing to be bound by your obligations under this Agreement. Any attempt to assign or transfer the license to the Software, the Documentation or this Agreement shall be ineffective, unless the assignment complies with the terms of this paragraph. Upon assignment of your license hereunder, you agree to transfer to the Assignee all of your copies of the Software and Documentation, including all copies of updates and prior versions of the Software and Documentation and you further agree and that you will retain no copies, including, without limitation, electronic copies stored on computer discs or drives.

DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY

Except as otherwise provided herein, we warrant that the Software is free from defects in material and workmanship and will perform substantially in accordance with the Software documentation under normal use for one hundred eighty (180) days after the receipt of the Software. If you notify us within such one hundred eighty (180) day period of any claimed defect in the Software, we will at our sole option and expense, and as you sole remedy, either repair or replace the defective Software. Or, if we cannot repair or replace the Software then we will accept the return of the Software at our expense and refund the purchase price of the Software.

EXCEPT AS STATED HEREIN, THE SOFTWARE AND SERVICES OFFERED BY US ARE PROVIDED ON AN "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE" BASIS WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY OTHER KIND, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF TITLE, NONINFRINGEMENT, MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. WE DO NOT WARRANT THAT THE SOFTWARE WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED, TIMELY, RELIABLE, SECURE OR ERROR-FREE AND EXPRESSLY DISCLAIM ANY WARRANTIES AS TO THE MATERIALS CONTAINED THEREIN, THE SERVERS USED OR THE GOODS OR SERVICES OFFERED BY US.

EXCLUSION OF CERTAIN DAMAGES

IN NO EVENT WILL EITHER PARTY BE LIABLE FOR ANY DAMAGES, INCLUDING ANY LOST PROFITS, LOST SAVINGS, OR OTHER INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES ARISING FROM THE USE OR THE INABILITY TO USE THE SOFTWARE (EVEN IF A PARTY OR AN AUTHORIZED DEALER OR DISTRIBUTOR HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF THESE DAMAGES), OR FOR ANY CLAIM BY ANY OTHER PARTY. EXCLUDED FROM THE ABOVE LIMITATION OF LIABILITY IS LIABILITY FOR INDEMNIFICATION AS STATED HEREIN AND DAMAGES CAUSED BY THE GROSS NEGLIGENCE OR WILLFUL MISCONDUCT OF A PARTY.

TERM AND TERMINATION

This Agreement takes effect upon your acceptance of the terms of this Agreement and remains effective until terminated by either party in accordance with this Agreement. You may terminate this Agreement at any time by destroying all copies of the Software and Documentation in your possession and giving us prompt notice of same. This Agreement will automatically terminate if you fail to comply with any term or condition of this Agreement. Upon termination of this Agreement, you warrant and represent that you will immediately destroy all copies of the Software and Documentation or other materials provided to you hereunder, if any, that are still in your possession and provide us prompt written assurance of same.

CONFIDENTIALITY

Non-disclosure. You agree and acknowledge that the Software, its algorithms, protocols or interfaces, and the Documentation constitute proprietary and confidential information that belong to us (the "Confidential Information"). You also understand and agree that misuse and/or unauthorized disclosure of our Confidential Information could adversely affect our business. Accordingly, you agree that at all times you will (a) use and reproduce the Confidential Information only for the purposes of this Agreement and only to the extent necessary for such purpose; (b) restrict disclosure of the Confidential Information to your employees, consultants or independent contractors with a need to know and (c) not disclose the Confidential Information to any third party without our prior written approval. Notwithstanding the foregoing, it shall not be a breach of this Agreement for You to disclose Confidential Information if required to do so under law or in a judicial or other governmental investigation or proceeding, provided however, that You give us prior notice of the disclosure sought and You seek all reasonably available safeguards against widespread dissemination prior to such disclosure.

Remedies. You acknowledge that any violation of this paragraph may cause us immediate and irreparable harm and that the damages which we will suffer may be difficult or impossible to measure. Therefore, upon any actual or impending violation of this paragraph, we shall be entitled to the issuance of a restraining order, preliminary and permanent injunction without bond, restraining or enjoining such violation by you, your successors or assigns or any entity or person acting in concert with you. Such remedy shall be additional to and not in limitation of any other remedy which may otherwise be available to us by law.

INDEMNITY

We will at our own expense defend and hold you fully harmless against any action asserted against you (and specifically including costs and reasonable attorneys' fees associated with any such action) to the extent that it is based on a claim that use of the Software and any documentation or other materials being licensed by or provided to you under this Agreement infringes any patent, copyright, license or other proprietary right of any third party. You shall promptly notify us in writing of any such claim. If as a result of any claim of infringement against any patent, copyright, License or other proprietary right of any third party, you are enjoined from using the Software, or if we believe that the Software are likely to become the subject of a claim of infringement, We will at our option and expense will procure the right for you to continue to use the Software, or replace or modify the Software so as to make them non-infringing, or if it cannot do so within a reasonable time period, refund the Software fees paid by you pursuant to the Agreement.

GENERAL PROVISIONS

  1. This Agreement constitutes the entire agreement between you and us concerning the Software and Documentation and supersedes any prior or contemporaneous negotiations, discussions, understandings, purchase orders, communications, advertising or representations concerning the subject matter hereof.
  2. This Agreement may be modified or amended only in writing signed by you and us.
  3. In the event of litigation between you and us concerning the Software or Documentation, the prevailing party in the litigation will be entitled to recover attorneys' fees and expenses from the other party.
  4. You agree that the Software will not be shipped, transferred or exported into any country or used in any manner prohibited by any export laws, restrictions or regulations.
  5. The failure or delay of of either party to exercise any of its rights under this Agreement or upon any breach of this Agreement shall not be deemed a waiver of those rights or of the breach.
  6. If any provision of this Agreement shall be held by a court of competent jurisdiction to be contrary to law that provision will be enforced to the maximum extent permissible and the remaining provisions of this Agreement will remain in full force and effect.